It’s an invisible disease. Similar to a parasite, once it makes its way into your mind, it grows at the expense of its host. It takes over your brain. Rationality and logic fight hard, but ultimately surrender to its vicious grasp. There is no winning. Even the grumble of hunger, pounding headaches, and perpetual fatigue aren’t enough to kill this leech. It never leaves. It is instead entertained by playing tricks on a mind that is already exhausted. Once it infects you, it is there forever. At times, it is an all-encompassing entity. Other times it sits back and laughs, but it never leaves.
This parasite infected me at the vulnerable age of thirteen.
“Get up, it's 7:45. You have class in 15 minutes,” my dad calls out from the foot of my bed.
My dad’s emotions are clearly expressed through his tone of voice. Although he is talented at many other things, hiding his emotions has never been one of them. His voice is powerful but kind this morning. It commands attention, but carries a soft understanding of the situation. This is how most of our mornings go after all.
My voice is muffled as I hide under the blanket–really mature, I know. “I’m getting up.”
My dad ignores my clear attempt to get an extra ten minutes of sleep and continues, “You need to wash your face too. Try to look awake for class.”
“Mhm.”
“Is that a candy wrapper on your nightstand?,” my dad’s tone changes, but I’m too groggy to notice at that moment.
“Mhm.”
“Saira, get up.”
“Mhm.”
“No, now. You need to start eating healthier.”
Wait, what. Is he serious? My dad has never cared about what I eat. He has an even bigger sweet-tooth than I do. Indulging in sweet treats is one of our favorite things to do together. Our love of desserts is honestly the only thing we seem to have in common these days.
“What?” I slowly remove the blanket from my head and look up. I am met with my father’s disappointed stare. The only stare I seem to be getting from him since Covid-19 shut the world down. I chalked it up to frustration at being trapped in our house, but this look is different.
“Look at yourself. Are you honestly proud of what you’ve become? Most of the people in your class are so active and all you do is sit in bed and eat candy. It shows.”
That is all it took for the parasite to start crawling into my mind.
What I’ve become?
***
The sticky, sweet icing from a vanilla cupcake covers my face and hands. As the breeze whips my hair back and forth, pieces of hair get caught in my frosting covered fingers. Blades of freshly cut, wet grass tickle my bare feet as I run across the park to my mom who stands ready with a wet-wipe and a smile. As he hears my footsteps approaching, my dad turns around and laughs, amused at his six-year-old daughter who always seems to end up with a sweet treat in her hand. He feels nothing but love for the first child with whom he shared his love of sugar. Now, he feels nothing but disgust as he stares at the body of his thirteen-year-old daughter, who is struggling to destroy the love he instilled in her–a deadly attempt to gain his approval once again.
***
It started with a complete ban of artificial sugar. At thirteen, my father became my first bully. His constant comments about my body finally suffocated me into submission.
“Let me grab my Monk fruit sweetener,” I say as I make my way to the once vibrant baking cabinet. My baking cabinet is a graveyard filled with the remnants of my extinguished passion for making (delicious) eggless cupcakes and various pastries. Now its only function is housing Monk fruit sweetener, a zero-calorie sweetener, which is perfect for people with diabetes and young girls determined to lose weight.
“You already look a lot fitter,” my dad remarks.
I slowly take my hands out of the sleeves of my oversized hoodie as the dull headache in the back of my head intensifies. Fitter. Hateful word after word that spews from my dad’s mouth gives the parasite energy to continue feasting on my mind. After cutting out artificial sugar completely, my dad’s encouragement had given me the motivation to cut out most other foods, including the healthy ones. FITTER? “Fitter” would be the ability to walk without getting dizzy and get up from bed without having to take painkillers to numb the cry of my head pounding and stomach begging for crumbs of food.
“Wow Ayaan, look at her dedication. You should learn something from your older sister.”
I open the cabinet. Colorful cupcake liners rest on the top shelf of the cabinet, next to my pink spatula, pink bowls, and… a Pizookie skillet.
***
The smell of a warm, white chocolate macadamia nut cookie with cold vanilla ice cream making its way to the booth my family and I sit in consumes my senses. I smile as the anticipation of digging into my favorite dessert overwhelms me–back before it was embarrassing to be this excited about something–and the sound of cutlery making harsh contact with porcelain plates, people talking, and the sports broadcasts in the background of the busy BJ’s Restaurant & Brewhouse all fade away. The Pizookie reaches our table and I quickly grab a spoon.
“Slow down,” my dad laughs. “It’s not going anywhere.”
The Pizookie skillet is so warm it hurts to touch, but the sting fades away when I take my first bite. Peace. Happiness. Comfort. The contrasting temperatures of the cookie and ice cream combined with the delicious flavor of macadamia nuts is what makes this dessert not only delicious, but also my comfort food. Everything about a BJ’s Pizookie is perfect, so much so that no description I give will do it justice. If you haven’t had the pleasure of experiencing eating one, I recommend you go do it. Now. In fact, take this story with you when you try it. It’ll be even better when your mouth is full of the white chocolate macadamia nut cookie and cold ice cream.
Enjoying a Pizookie with my dad is how I knew when he was proud of me. Not only was the dessert perfect in every way, but it became our tradition. He took me to get a Pizookie after I sang at my first recital in 3rd grade, every time I got straight As on my report card (which was every report card ever because anything beside straight As is not acceptable in an Indian household), and when I was accepted into eight out of the nine competitive high schools I applied to in 8th grade. That night we ordered it to-go and secretly ate it in the car as my dad shielded me from my mother’s anger. She was mad about the one high school I was wait-listed at.
“I’m proud of you, I want you to know that.”
I stared at my dad. You know that feeling when you know you’re about to cry, but you try to do everything you can to stop yourself. Yeah. Crying makes my dad uncomfortable. His dad used to beat him if he cried as the only logical way to deal with emotions at the time was for my grandfather to threaten his sons that crying takes away their masculinity. I try not to be angry at my dad for what his dad did to him. So, in an attempt to not ruin the moment, I bit my lip so hard it drew blood. My eyes welled up with tears away.
“Thanks dad.”
My dad and I’s relationship was never one that involved a lot of talking. We just seemed to understand each other in a way my brother and mom didn’t.
“No, I'm serious. You work so hard and I want you to know we notice that. Your mom is mad right now, but she’ll calm down.”
That’s all it took. Under the glow of streetlight, tears silently made their way down my face.
“Hey, no crying. Eat your Pizookie,” he says sternly. His voice softens a bit when he sees the smile on my face that silently communicates my gratitude.
That was the last time we shared a Pizookie together. As my desire to eat slowly faded, it took with it the remnants of our relationship.
***
Beauty standards in the current world are hard for young children to navigate, especially when parents can have a large impact in amplifying their effects. I can tell you to be confident in yourself and not change for anyone else, but I would argue that I am confident and I was impacted anyways. I want to tell you that it is impossible to fit conventional standards of beauty because they were never meant to be attainable, but that did not stop me from trying. So, all I can tell you after years of a constant mental struggle is what I needed someone else to tell that thirteen year old girl crying in the mirror about her body. Nothing is worth becoming a shell of yourself. Your worth does not come from how you look. Starving yourself is harmful. You may have heard these phrases 100 times before, but that does not make them any less true. However, if the parasite has already infected you, this may not help. It makes me a hypocrite. I write these words while I sit on my desk starving.
***
It is alarming how many people started to comment on my body as soon as I stopped eating. A majority of the conversations I had the months following went like this:
“Hey, nice to see you again. You look great.”
“Thanks.” I’m too dizzy to get up from bed, but thanks.
“Have you lost weight?” This question was almost always followed by an awkward laugh. My dad may have been the catalyst to my disorder, but everyone around me unknowing fueled my desire to keep going. The parasite in my head grew and grew with each compliment it received.
When you google people with eating disorders they are almost always extremely skinny. When I looked in the mirror of my childhood bedroom, I didn’t see that. Why couldn’t I lose weight? The structure of my ribs was hidden behind layers of stubborn fat. I picked and pinched and scratched at my stomach, praying it would disappear, but it never did. My mom cried for the shell of a daughter she was left with. She begged and pleaded with me to eat. Even the tears from my mom’s big, brown eyes and devastation on her face was not enough to kill this parasite. It still isn’t. The loss of my menstrual cycle wasn’t enough to convince the voice in my head to shut up because who wants to bleed every month anyways. Logically, I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t stop. I still can’t.
***
It does get better. There comes a point when the headaches, dizziness, weakness, and nausea become comfortable. I eat a little and try to break the cycle by telling the voice in my head to shut up. It doesn’t, but I eat anyway. My parents try to break the walls they built in my head, but it is too late. They let in the parasite that continues to haunt me. Its wrath is infinite. My dad buys a Pizookie pass every year in the hope that he can convince me to use it. It is wasted. Every. Year. He cannot live with the guilt of knowing he killed the innocence of his daughter. I thank him. He was cruel to me before the world could be. I remind myself that recovery is not linear and trying for now is enough.
***
Yesterday, I came home from school with the same dull ache in my head. This headache has become my new comfort. It serves as a reminder that I may be dizzy and hungry and exhausted, but at least I’m not gaining weight. My dad was sitting on the couch. He looked up when he saw me and said, “wow Saira, you look very fit today.” Fit. I haven’t eaten a full meal in a week.
Well fuck. Here we go again.
Saira is a high school senior interested in exploring the intersections of storytelling and cultural anthropology. In addition to sharing her thoughts on her blog, she runs a non-profit dedicated to providing women with the resources to get an education, apply for jobs and leadership positions, and find markets to scale their ventures worldwide. She has a short poetry book published on Kindle. Writing has helped Saira discover her voice and she hopes it inspires others to do the same.
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